Making hospitals healthier: how to improve sustainability in healthcare facilities (original) (raw)

Reviewing the sustainability of existing healthcare facilities

2008

The National Health Services (NHS) is currently undertaking its largest hospital building programme with £7 billion worth of major hospital projects in the pipeline. This is happening at a time when global warming, climate change and environmental pollution have become major considerations during the design process. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported that hospitals tend to comprise the key characteristics of a hotel, a warehouse and a factory all at the same time, which makes their energy consumption extremely high, although the energy consumption does vary considerably from one facility to another. There are standards and guidelines for designing new healthcare facilities such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the Green Guide to Health Construction (GGHC). These standards do not apply to existing healthcare facilities. Comparing today's NHS building stock, it wont be incorrect to say that, most of the facilities used by NHS are built ...

Sustainability trends in public hospitals: Efforts and priorities

Evaluation and Program Planning, 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine the previous and the current efforts and the priorities of sustainability initiatives in the public sector. Design/Methodology/approach: This study has been conducted in one industry, overcoming contextual bias as a judgmental sampling was used to select the public hospitals that were studied. Only knowledgeable key informants were approached and used. Findings: The examination of the previous and the current efforts and the priorities of the sustainability initiatives revealed in this study indicate the existence of different trends in the public hospitals studied. Research limitations/implications: The results report the key trends that were disclosed in the public hospitals studied in their efforts towards sustainability. In particular, the results show that there appears to be a lack of guidelines and homogeneity in sustainability planning in public hospitals in Spain, accompanied by the near universal absence of the evaluation phase in respect to the outcomes of the sustainability initiatives that have been put in place in these organizations. Managerial Implications: The multi-dimensional factors of sustainability initiatives provide managerial guidance to assess the previous and the current efforts and priorities. These factors also provide organizational guidance to assess the trends of an organization through time. Originality/Value: This study contributes to a selection of factors regarding the previous and the current efforts and the priorities of sustainability initiatives applicable in public hospitals. It provides a multi-dimensional framework of factors that can be used in order to describe sustainability trends.

Why Are Hospitals Important for Sustainable

2015

We connect two important societal concerns that are rarely addressed in combination: sustainable development and health promotion. Hospitals as central health care providers can minimize their negative side effects and improve health gain by applying a socio-ecological sustainability concept that focuses on health care – hospitals ’ core business – and is linked to quality management. 191 hrough ecological building design, improved energy efficien-cy, ecological purchasing, or environmental management sys-tems, hospitals endeavour to reduce their impact on the environ-ment. Yet ecological criteria are still neglected when it comes to hospitals ’ core business: health care. Any effort made for patients’ health is seen as justified, and the prevailing opinion still treats environmental protection as peripheral. At the same time, the growing health sector with its energy- and material-intensive forms of therapy contributes to environmental pollution (SDC 2008) and thereby to an intensi...

Sustainable healthcare: how to assess and improve healthcare structures' sustainability

Annali di igiene : medicina preventiva e di comunità

Sustainability is a broad and debated subject, often difficult to be defined and applied into real projects, especially when dealing with a complex scenario as the one of healthcare. Many research studies and evaluation systems have handled this topic from different perspectives, but many limits and criticalities still have to be overcome to properly cope with actual needs. The Sustainable Healthcare project has been developed through three main phases: a deep study of the state of the art, unraveling pros and cons of available sustainability scoring systems; an accurate analysis of the stakeholders network and their needs; the realization of an objective evaluation framework, through scientific methods, as the ANP. The newly developed evaluation system takes into consideration all the three pillars of sustainability, analyzing social, environmental and economic sustainability through a set of criteria, specified by measurable indicators. So the system identifies both global sustain...

Sustainable Hospital Design for Sustainable Development

2017

Sustainability is the important concepts in 20th century. Several definitions of sustainable development have been put forth, including the following common one: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability relies on high efficiency and the uninterrupted function of a continuing social, economic and ecological system in such a way that does not degrade and consume the resources used. Sustainable architecture is explained as a long term thought and action philosophy including the processes of building programming, usage, management throughout its economic life, destruction of the building or reuse. “The characteristics of sustainable design are its ability to integrate the life cycles of building systems with ecological systems in biosphere. The aim of this study is to reveal what design inputs can be driven in hospital buildings that differ in terms of design, application process and human environment relationships in use. When the continuously dense usage situations of hospitals are considered, the concept of “green hospital” is used to define the hospitals fulfilling at least one of the alternatives such as choosing environmental settlement design, buying nature friendly building materials and products, being environmentally sensitive during the construction of the hospital building and keeping this sensitivity going in service production process. Green hospital defines a facility which recycles, reuses the materials, reducing wastes and giving more clean air to the environment. This approach based on an environmentalist management understanding is seen under the headlines like management of waste and hazardous materials, water management, energy management and air emission regulating system and innovator environmental designs.

The Need for a Sustainable Hospital: Why and How?

2019

Sustainable buildings are becoming a focus nowadays as they give impact towards society, environment and cost-effectiveness. Hospital has been categorized under commercial building category as the building built for commercial use is also aimed to be a sustainable hospital. Notably, sustainable hospital aims to serve health facilities for mankind and reduce greenhouse gasses emissions to the environment from the building at the same time. In term of energy consumption, generally, hospital consumes high electricity usage since it is operating non-stop for 24 hours a day which leads to high electricity cost and give impact towards the environment. In this paper, a study of electricity usage of electrical equipment in a public hospital nearby Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia has been conducted through preliminary energy audit in the hospital. Therefore, energy conservation measures (ECMs) are suggested to be applied in the hospital to reduce its electricity consumption. From the suggested ECMs w...

Sustainable Development in Healthcare

International Journal of Reliable and Quality E-Healthcare, 2015

The implementation of the concept of sustainable development in the establishment of “Green Hospital” is attracting growing interest. The health sector and, in particular, a hospital may affect the environment and the economy in the a) maximization of energy consumption b) waste of natural resources c) difficulty in waste management due to their rapidly increasing volume d) construction of non-friendly for people and environment buildings e) growing demand for funds to cover operating expenses. Moreover, it seems that the strategic planning of a Green Hospital can cause significant changes to: a) Energy saving – Green development – Environment protection; b) Building reconstruction; c) Improvement of provided services to citizens; d) Saving of financial resources. Therefore, efforts should be made to save energy and money in the hospitals through sustainable development projects. Finally, the Green Hospital has the potential to provide improved therapeutic results for patients and m...

Hospitals Adaption to Principles of Sustainable Architecture

Architectoni.ca, 2012

Architectural designs in hospitals have evolved over time and this is in relation to innovation in medicine. The study sought to understand the issues surrounding sustainability and the architecture chosen. Hospitals have been associated with tremendous consumption of the natural resources. Production of waste is also as high though management of the waste may not be up to par from an environmentalist's perspective. The architecture's concern for the environment's sustainability is also probed in the study. This raises the worries regarding what hospitals can do while choosing the designs so as to reduce the consumption to reasonable levels and at the same time conserve the environment. The study also set out to establish the attitudes of hospitals towards sustainability and the efforts being made to achieve this. It was conducted in 10 hospitals in Hawaii and California states. The study used interviews and qualitative design to analyse the results specifically constant comparison. It has come to a conclusion that the architecture affects the sustainability of the environment as the findings suggest. It also found out that hospitals are embracing some of the new architectural aspects that consume fewer resources and maximize the utilization of the other unlimited resources such as air and light in carrying out the daily activities. This is clear as more hospitals are ready to go green especially under the guidance of LEED. The hospitals' attitudes towards sustainability are positive as it benefits them. Most have taken this up to save on costs of running the hospitals.

Evaluation of a Sustainable Hospital Design based on its Social and Environmental Outcomes

The study assessed the performance of a newly-built sustainable hospital by comparing the thermal comfort of its patients and staff, and the ambient thermal conditions with those of two other hospitals with less sophisticated designs. Additionally, a facility management perspective was used to understand the role hospital administrators had in contributing to sustainable design outcomes and document the unanticipated challenges and unintended consequences of operating the newly-built sustainable hospital. Data were collected through thermal environment equipment, a thermal comfort survey, and interviews with care providers, patients, and facility managers. The hypotheses were that the hospital with the modern and more sophisticated sustainable ventilation design features would have a higher level of thermal comfort and lower heat index in the naturally ventilated wards than hospitals without those features and that thermal comfort would be higher in air-conditioned wards than naturally ventilated wards. The results indicate that sophisticated sustainable hospital designs can improve the ambient thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort but not all those features were necessary. The study also suggests the need for adopting an integrated sustainable design strategy to prevent or mitigate some of the facility operation challenges encountered. Additionally, the study proposes for a shift in thermal comfort standards and green building rating tools to meet the unique thermal comfort needs of hospital users.

Principles for the Sustainable Design of Hospital Buildings

International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning

Technological progress has had negative effects as well as positive effects if it affects the life industry and the entire ecosystem significantly through the great consumption of natural resources, and here the construction sector in general and the health sector, in particular, have a role in this. From the perspective of keeping pace with technological development, responding to environmental changes, and paying attention to hospital environments (especially since the emergence of modern epidemics), and because the construction sector is the largest consumer of energy in the world, which made international organizations move towards creating a sustainable environment in the construction of hospital buildings by reducing energy consumption. This research focused on studying the components and principles of sustainable design for hospital buildings and the environmental, economic, health, and social benefits of sustainable development in the healthcare industry. In addition to the ...